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WALKER FAMILY MURDERS

After 50 years, Walkers wait to learn who killed their relatives

Cliff Walker at his home in Arcadia. He is the nephew of Cliff and Christine Walker, who were murdered in Osprey in 1959. The case remains unsolved.

STAFF PHOTO / DAN WAGNER

By SHANNON McFARLAND

Published: Thursday, April 4, 2013 at 5:35 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, April 4, 2013 at 5:35 p.m.

ARCADIA - Cindy Walker thought it was time her husband saw the movie.

She had watched the stark, black-and-white “In Cold Blood” years ago. An up-close portrayal of two callous killers, the film is as unsettling today as when theatergoers first saw it in 1967.

She could not have fathomed, back when she first shuddered through it, that the brutal killings depicted might resonate someday in a personal way through a connection to her family.

Now, years later, she ordered it on eBay so her husband, Cliff “Windy” Walker, could watch it with her.

They settled onto the couch in their country house in the Walkers' hometown of Arcadia, underneath the mounted deer heads, to watch. They looked on as the two drifters, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, murder the Clutter family in Kansas and are caught after eluding investigators. In the final scene, the two men swing from the gallows in a prison warehouse on a rainy night.

Cindy knows her husband, and most of the men in his family, are not big talkers. After seeing the movie though, Windy had no doubt.

They got just what they deserved, he said.

But to him, the morbid film is not entertainment. It is achingly personal.

He is named after his slain uncle Cliff. For more than 50 years, Windy and his kin have lived with the nagging knowledge that someone — a stranger? Neighbor? Even family? — had shot four of their own. Windy's uncle and aunt, and his two cousins — innocent little children — killed in their own unpainted, tin-roof home in rural Osprey on Dec. 19, 1959.

But unlike the Clutter murders, no one knows who killed his family.

The movie never mentions anything about Smith and Hickock traveling through Florida, driving a stolen car from Tallahassee down to Miami.

The couple had never read the famous true crime book upon which the movie was based. They had no idea Truman Capote's acclaimed “In Cold Blood” immortalizing the victims and their killers and dismissed a possible link between Hickock and Smith and the slayings of the Walker family. It was an “exceptional coincidence,” Capote wrote.

In December, nearly 53 years to the day that the Walkers were mercilessly wiped out, law enforcement exhumed the bodies of Hickock and Smith in Kansas. For the past few months a lab has worked to extract and test the DNA to determine if it could connect the criminals with the slain Walker family.

Windy and his family have waited for decades, hoping for a new breakthrough, hoping it will not be another disappointment, hoping for some answers — and now hoping for a DNA match.

Don't talk about it

Cindy thinks every family member has a right to know what happened. After months of waiting for results from the DNA tests, she hopes it will come to an end soon.

Windy's father and an uncle died without knowing who took the life of their brother. Of the elder Cliff Walker's five siblings, two brothers and a sister are still living, eager for the DNA tests to finally give them answers.

“Especially your aunt,” Cindy tells Windy. “I know they probably all took it hard, but being who she is and being the only girl.”

Windy's own mother did not talk much about it, bringing it up only if she heard something new. Once, she talked about a death-row inmate who tried to claim credit for the murders, giving false confessions for multiple crimes, including the Walker murders.

Enduring decades of painful wondering, the troubling family chapter has passed down through generations to Windy and his cousins, some too young to remember the terrible day that changed their parents' lives. Although the family rarely spoke about it, at 50, Windy has known about the murders for as long as he can remember.

A Florida cattle rancher, just like his slain uncle, Windy works with one of Cliff's brothers every day. He has few memories of his uncles talking about Cliff, Christine and the two little cousins.

The men in the Walker family are not known for being talkative or outwardly emotional, Cindy has found.

'They were so little'

“Why has it taken so long?” Windy wonders. Windy and his wife thought back over family history and the many questions about their family, the killers and decades of a fruitless investigation.

They sat at the kitchen table in their home recently, just after Windy got home from work at the cattle ranch. He was still wearing his work clothes, dirtied from the long day outside, as well as spurs and a cowboy hat. It was just a few weeks after they learned Hickock and Smith's bodies had been exhumed.

While detectives are in contact with surviving relatives of the Walker family, Windy did not first learn of the plan to exhume the bodies from them. He had to read about it in a newspaper.

Windy's boss was in a Port Charlotte grocery store in December when he walked by the newspaper stand, glancing at the Herald-Tribune front page. He bought the paper and brought it to Windy at work the next morning.

The couple had never spoken to a reporter about their family before. For some older family members, the emotions are still too raw to talk about publicly. They do not want to be further hounded by media as they grapple with seeing their family business splashed across national headlines and discussed on television.

One night they saw the case being examined on a TV news show, with a picture of a knife similar to Cliff Walker's blade, which was discovered missing from the crime scene. Eerily, Cindy realized she had bought her husband several bone-handled knives just like it.

“He's always had a knife like that,” she said. “It was just weird to see it on the TV the other night.”

Windy did not realize the attention the case was garnering until Cindy told him about all the stories his cousin had posted to Facebook. Cindy said that she thinks all the public interest is because of Capote and his book.

Windy figures Capote made a lot of money off the story of the two murderers.

“He went in there and talked those guys into spilling their guts,” Windy said.

But even if there is a DNA connection, some questions will linger.

“I just don't understand the way they killed the kids. They were so little. What could they have told?” Cindy asked, thinking of 2- and 3-year-old Debbie and Jimmie Walker. “It's just sick.”

Waiting for answers

The answers they do have cannot erase years of pain and suspicions.

“There's a lot of grief and hurt,” Windy said. After the slayings, every family member, neighbor and friend was interviewed by detectives looking for clues and suspects. He remembers hearing how his father and other men were put through the wringer in the desperate search for any information. Several of them were questioned and forced to take multiple polygraph tests.

“I think every time a new detective comes on, they want to be the one to bust it,” Windy said. But he thinks the early investigation may have spent more time collecting rumors than leads. The interviews yielded hundreds of pages of reports, clues and gossip. Many suggested Christine Walker, who was raped before being shot, had a jealous lover.

“All these years, people have said those kinds of things,” Cindy said.

Cliff Walker's cousin, Elbert Walker, was always one of detectives' top suspects. Cindy remembers a family member whispering about Elbert to her at the funeral for one of the Walker brothers.

“He did it, he did it,” she remembers hearing. DNA cleared Elbert of the crime several years ago, after decades of living with whispers and finger-pointing about his cousin's death.

“I don't think any of the family really believed that Elbert done it anyhow,” Windy said. “I think that was just small-town gossip.”

Another man eliminated by DNA evidence was Don McLeod. A close friend of the slain Walker family, he had planned to go hog hunting with Cliff Walker the morning he found their bloodied bodies.

“Hell, he was a suspect,” Windy said. “He's been talked about — I've heard that name mentioned numerous times my whole life.”

Now the talk and curiosity about their family has taken on a grander scale, with Capote's book drawing a new level of scrutiny to the case. The subject of speculation and occasional headlines for decades, the stories about the Walker family — at least so far — have always ended the same way:

Plenty of questions, plenty of suspicions and more than enough anguish.

<p><em>ARCADIA</em> - Cindy Walker thought it was time her husband saw the movie.</p><p>She had watched the stark, black-and-white “In Cold Blood” years ago. An up-close portrayal of two callous killers, the film is as unsettling today as when theatergoers first saw it in 1967.</p><p>She could not have fathomed, back when she first shuddered through it, that the brutal killings depicted might resonate someday in a personal way through a connection to her family.</p><p>Now, years later, she ordered it on eBay so her husband, Cliff “Windy” Walker, could watch it with her.</p><p>They settled onto the couch in their country house in the Walkers' hometown of Arcadia, underneath the mounted deer heads, to watch. They looked on as the two drifters, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, murder the Clutter family in Kansas and are caught after eluding investigators. In the final scene, the two men swing from the gallows in a prison warehouse on a rainy night. </p><p>Cindy knows her husband, and most of the men in his family, are not big talkers. After seeing the movie though, Windy had no doubt. </p><p>They got just what they deserved, he said. </p><p>But to him, the morbid film is not entertainment. It is achingly personal.</p><p>He is named after his slain uncle Cliff. For more than 50 years, Windy and his kin have lived with the nagging knowledge that someone — a stranger? Neighbor? Even family? — had shot four of their own. Windy's uncle and aunt, and his two cousins — innocent little children — killed in their own unpainted, tin-roof home in rural Osprey on Dec. 19, 1959. </p><p>But unlike the Clutter murders, no one knows who killed his family. </p><p>The movie never mentions anything about Smith and Hickock traveling through Florida, driving a stolen car from Tallahassee down to Miami. </p><p>The couple had never read the famous true crime book upon which the movie was based. They had no idea Truman Capote's acclaimed “In Cold Blood” immortalizing the victims and their killers and dismissed a possible link between Hickock and Smith and the slayings of the Walker family. It was an “exceptional coincidence,” Capote wrote. </p><p>In December, nearly 53 years to the day that the Walkers were mercilessly wiped out, law enforcement exhumed the bodies of Hickock and Smith in Kansas. For the past few months a lab has worked to extract and test the DNA to determine if it could connect the criminals with the slain Walker family. </p><p>Windy and his family have waited for decades, hoping for a new breakthrough, hoping it will not be another disappointment, hoping for some answers — and now hoping for a DNA match. </p><p><b>Don't talk about it</b></p><p>Cindy thinks every family member has a right to know what happened. After months of waiting for results from the DNA tests, she hopes it will come to an end soon. </p><p>Windy's father and an uncle died without knowing who took the life of their brother. Of the elder Cliff Walker's five siblings, two brothers and a sister are still living, eager for the DNA tests to finally give them answers.</p><p>“Especially your aunt,” Cindy tells Windy. “I know they probably all took it hard, but being who she is and being the only girl.”</p><p>Windy's own mother did not talk much about it, bringing it up only if she heard something new. Once, she talked about a death-row inmate who tried to claim credit for the murders, giving false confessions for multiple crimes, including the Walker murders. </p><p>Enduring decades of painful wondering, the troubling family chapter has passed down through generations to Windy and his cousins, some too young to remember the terrible day that changed their parents' lives. Although the family rarely spoke about it, at 50, Windy has known about the murders for as long as he can remember. </p><p>A Florida cattle rancher, just like his slain uncle, Windy works with one of Cliff's brothers every day. He has few memories of his uncles talking about Cliff, Christine and the two little cousins. </p><p>The men in the Walker family are not known for being talkative or outwardly emotional, Cindy has found. </p><p><b>'They were so little'</b></p><p>“Why has it taken so long?” Windy wonders. Windy and his wife thought back over family history and the many questions about their family, the killers and decades of a fruitless investigation. </p><p>They sat at the kitchen table in their home recently, just after Windy got home from work at the cattle ranch. He was still wearing his work clothes, dirtied from the long day outside, as well as spurs and a cowboy hat. It was just a few weeks after they learned Hickock and Smith's bodies had been exhumed. </p><p>While detectives are in contact with surviving relatives of the Walker family, Windy did not first learn of the plan to exhume the bodies from them. He had to read about it in a newspaper. </p><p>Windy's boss was in a Port Charlotte grocery store in December when he walked by the newspaper stand, glancing at the Herald-Tribune front page. He bought the paper and brought it to Windy at work the next morning. </p><p>The couple had never spoken to a reporter about their family before. For some older family members, the emotions are still too raw to talk about publicly. They do not want to be further hounded by media as they grapple with seeing their family business splashed across national headlines and discussed on television. </p><p>One night they saw the case being examined on a TV news show, with a picture of a knife similar to Cliff Walker's blade, which was discovered missing from the crime scene. Eerily, Cindy realized she had bought her husband several bone-handled knives just like it.</p><p>“He's always had a knife like that,” she said. “It was just weird to see it on the TV the other night.”</p><p>Windy did not realize the attention the case was garnering until Cindy told him about all the stories his cousin had posted to Facebook. Cindy said that she thinks all the public interest is because of Capote and his book.</p><p>Windy figures Capote made a lot of money off the story of the two murderers. </p><p>“He went in there and talked those guys into spilling their guts,” Windy said.</p><p>But even if there is a DNA connection, some questions will linger.</p><p>“I just don't understand the way they killed the kids. They were so little. What could they have told?” Cindy asked, thinking of 2- and 3-year-old Debbie and Jimmie Walker. “It's just sick.”</p><p><b>Waiting for answers</b></p><p>The answers they do have cannot erase years of pain and suspicions. </p><p>“There's a lot of grief and hurt,” Windy said. After the slayings, every family member, neighbor and friend was interviewed by detectives looking for clues and suspects. He remembers hearing how his father and other men were put through the wringer in the desperate search for any information. Several of them were questioned and forced to take multiple polygraph tests.</p><p>“I think every time a new detective comes on, they want to be the one to bust it,” Windy said. But he thinks the early investigation may have spent more time collecting rumors than leads. The interviews yielded hundreds of pages of reports, clues and gossip. Many suggested Christine Walker, who was raped before being shot, had a jealous lover. </p><p>“All these years, people have said those kinds of things,” Cindy said. </p><p>Cliff Walker's cousin, Elbert Walker, was always one of detectives' top suspects. Cindy remembers a family member whispering about Elbert to her at the funeral for one of the Walker brothers. </p><p>“He did it, he did it,” she remembers hearing. DNA cleared Elbert of the crime several years ago, after decades of living with whispers and finger-pointing about his cousin's death. </p><p>“I don't think any of the family really believed that Elbert done it anyhow,” Windy said. “I think that was just small-town gossip.”</p><p>Another man eliminated by DNA evidence was Don McLeod. A close friend of the slain Walker family, he had planned to go hog hunting with Cliff Walker the morning he found their bloodied bodies. </p><p>“Hell, he was a suspect,” Windy said. “He's been talked about — I've heard that name mentioned numerous times my whole life.” </p><p>Now the talk and curiosity about their family has taken on a grander scale, with Capote's book drawing a new level of scrutiny to the case. The subject of speculation and occasional headlines for decades, the stories about the Walker family — at least so far — have always ended the same way: </p><p>Plenty of questions, plenty of suspicions and more than enough anguish.</p><p>For now, all Windy and Cindy can do is wait and hope.</p>